Because you want to be proud of what you do
October 10, 2024 12:40 AM Subscribe
To many, the Internet Archive is its own kind of sanctuary — a vestige of a bygone internet built on openness and access, a Silicon Valley standout interested not in series funding or shareholder value, but the preservation of any piece of the cultural record it can get. But to the corporations and people that own the copyrights to large swaths of that record, the Internet Archive is like a pirate ship stuffed with digital plunder. Two lawsuits have brought these long-simmering tensions to the courts and public consciousness, with financial repercussions in the hundreds of millions that could bring down the internet’s greatest library. from Inside the $621 Million Legal Battle for the ‘Soul of the Internet’
[Rolling Stone; ungated]
Meanwhile, ruh-roh... The Internet Archive is under attack, with a breach revealing info for 31 million accounts
Brewster Kahle, previously
Meanwhile, ruh-roh... The Internet Archive is under attack, with a breach revealing info for 31 million accounts
Brewster Kahle, previously
non-paywalled
The Internet Archive seems like it has three parts: 1. backed up web pages, 2. copies of works that have fallen out of copyright, and 3. the thing where you can "borrow" copyrighted books.
Also:
The Great 78 Project bills itself as a “community project for the preservation, research and discovery of 78 rpm records”; the labels, in their lawsuit, call it an “illegal record store.” They claim the availability of these digitized 78s constitutes “wholesale theft of generations of music,” with “preservation and research” used as a “smokescreen.” They further argue that the project “undermines the value” of the original recordings, and “displace[s]” authorized streams that actually generate royalties and revenue.
Hindsight can be an act of willful condescension, but what if they had just archived that stuff that wasn't commercially valuable or copyrighted? Would we still be allowed the remaining content? Probably not.
Acting surprised by any of these lawsuits seems willfully naive at best. I'm hoping the archives make their way to some lawless country that doesn't allow for the incursion of Western lawyers, but now I'm just sounding like a bad Neal Stephenson novel.
posted by mecran01 at 3:29 AM on October 10 [11 favorites]
The Internet Archive seems like it has three parts: 1. backed up web pages, 2. copies of works that have fallen out of copyright, and 3. the thing where you can "borrow" copyrighted books.
Also:
The Great 78 Project bills itself as a “community project for the preservation, research and discovery of 78 rpm records”; the labels, in their lawsuit, call it an “illegal record store.” They claim the availability of these digitized 78s constitutes “wholesale theft of generations of music,” with “preservation and research” used as a “smokescreen.” They further argue that the project “undermines the value” of the original recordings, and “displace[s]” authorized streams that actually generate royalties and revenue.
Hindsight can be an act of willful condescension, but what if they had just archived that stuff that wasn't commercially valuable or copyrighted? Would we still be allowed the remaining content? Probably not.
Acting surprised by any of these lawsuits seems willfully naive at best. I'm hoping the archives make their way to some lawless country that doesn't allow for the incursion of Western lawyers, but now I'm just sounding like a bad Neal Stephenson novel.
posted by mecran01 at 3:29 AM on October 10 [11 favorites]
and 4. Video archives, many of which are actually still in copyright.
People often talk about breaking up Google but really Archive.org should be broken up for its own good, so that when Disney or whover attack them for a copyright mis-step it won't bring down the whole thing.
posted by Lanark at 3:36 AM on October 10 [22 favorites]
People often talk about breaking up Google but really Archive.org should be broken up for its own good, so that when Disney or whover attack them for a copyright mis-step it won't bring down the whole thing.
posted by Lanark at 3:36 AM on October 10 [22 favorites]
This huge data breach won't help matters.
posted by Optamystic at 3:41 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
posted by Optamystic at 3:41 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
I await the condemnation and breakup of the organization for having such poor security it's allowed 31 million accounts to get hacked.
posted by Comstar at 3:55 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
posted by Comstar at 3:55 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
I've been using the Archive a lot lately to find media not current enough to be interesting for the streaming services I subscribe to, but which are otherwise not available. A lot of it is clearly not out of copyright. Still, re-watching "Bob Roberts 1992" (not the actual title but the one that will help you find it on the service) is an oddly prescient exercise in election year 2024.
posted by St. Oops at 4:00 AM on October 10 [5 favorites]
posted by St. Oops at 4:00 AM on October 10 [5 favorites]
There are much worse kinds of evil out there, but corporate IP lawyers really are a bunch of assholes. I remember in (I think) the mid aughts when attorneys for the RIAA were going around to all the independent coffeeshops and if they had music playing threatening them with lawsuits for tens of thousands of dollars. Just seriously, what a bunch of insufferable pricks.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 4:07 AM on October 10 [18 favorites]
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 4:07 AM on October 10 [18 favorites]
The Library of Alexandria is referenced here a couple of times for fun...but what about the Library of Congress? Does this org figure into the article's arguments at all?
posted by kozad at 4:46 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
posted by kozad at 4:46 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
I'm hoping the archives make their way to some lawless country that doesn't allow for the incursion of Western lawyers, but now I'm just sounding like a bad Neal Stephenson novel.
Certainly, ha ha, this could never happen, not in real life!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:18 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
Certainly, ha ha, this could never happen, not in real life!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:18 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
This is a "more than one thing can be true at once" thing to my eyes. The IA is both a treasure and a tech bro ego trip run with knowing disregard for existing law and questionable security. Generally speaking, I love it, but I can't say I haven't noticed the copyrighted videos or that I didn't roll my eyes when they thought rips of Sinatra 78's were going to go unchallenged.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:40 AM on October 10 [15 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:40 AM on October 10 [15 favorites]
People often talk about breaking up Google but really Archive.org should be broken up for its own good, so that when Disney or whover attack them for a copyright mis-step it won't bring down the whole thing.
This. IA is a terrible, wonderful thing that combines a bunch of functions that no person, organization, or government is currently able or willing to carry out. I love what I've been able to find there (orphaned works! out of copyright biz!), and I hate the casual contempt for creators rights.
Framing this solely as "oh, it's big corporate IP being robbed, boo-hoo" is disingenuous. I cannot count the number of authors I know who have found their in-copyright work on IA. That's pointed at no one here in particular--I've seen this sentiment recycled endlessly on social, as well as on MetaFilter, by people who cannot process the idea that the IA hurts individual authors and other creatives. "Guess we're going to have to break some eggs to make the omelette of Information Wants To Be Free" means less food, medicine, housing, transportation, etc. for actual human beings.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:13 AM on October 10 [21 favorites]
This. IA is a terrible, wonderful thing that combines a bunch of functions that no person, organization, or government is currently able or willing to carry out. I love what I've been able to find there (orphaned works! out of copyright biz!), and I hate the casual contempt for creators rights.
Framing this solely as "oh, it's big corporate IP being robbed, boo-hoo" is disingenuous. I cannot count the number of authors I know who have found their in-copyright work on IA. That's pointed at no one here in particular--I've seen this sentiment recycled endlessly on social, as well as on MetaFilter, by people who cannot process the idea that the IA hurts individual authors and other creatives. "Guess we're going to have to break some eggs to make the omelette of Information Wants To Be Free" means less food, medicine, housing, transportation, etc. for actual human beings.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:13 AM on October 10 [21 favorites]
I would imagine the amount of money that is effectively stolen from creators -- that is to say, money that would definitely have been spent on purchasing the works if there was no other means of obtaining them -- is miniscule, at best, except possibly in the case of monumentally popular creators who are in no danger of starving anytime soon.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:54 AM on October 10 [9 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:54 AM on October 10 [9 favorites]
More to the point, this very, vanishingly, tiny risk is surely balanced out by making widely available rare and out of print works.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:55 AM on October 10 [11 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:55 AM on October 10 [11 favorites]
Lots of work subject to copyright is available from libraries too. Given the restrictions on resale and lending of digital goods compared to physical, you can't really set up online community libraries for example without breaking the laws. I can donate my books, CDs, DVDs, physical games to the local volunteer lending library to lend out, but I cannot do the same with anything that exists as an ebook, mp3, or digital download, and they could not lend them either. The way I see it, the IA is the cost of ending resale and lending rights in the digital domain.
posted by Dysk at 7:15 AM on October 10 [14 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 7:15 AM on October 10 [14 favorites]
That's an idea I always see floated: "this can't have that much effect on them, can it?" And I don't know the numbers on that. I really don't, and I don't know anyone who does. I don't think it's a "very, vanishingly, tiny risk," though, and I think there should be a happy medium somewhere between IP companies locking things up forever, because they can, and utter contempt for writers & other creatives. Joe Smith who worked on Starlog back in 1982 is not being hurt, as far as I can tell, by its availability on IA. Jane Smith who published a novel last year that's available on IA is being hurt in this market, unquestionably, and that's not okay.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:15 AM on October 10 [8 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:15 AM on October 10 [8 favorites]
Jane Smith who published a novel last year that's available on IA is being hurt in this market, unquestionably,
Is that unquestionable though? Do we have download numbers from IA to show that anyone is grabbing the novel from there? (And even then, do we know that the people downloading it would otherwise have paid for it?)
Like, there is unquestionably potential for Ms Smith to be harmed in some way (relative to the not unproblematic IP status quo) but that is not the same as proving actual harm.
posted by Dysk at 7:21 AM on October 10 [4 favorites]
Is that unquestionable though? Do we have download numbers from IA to show that anyone is grabbing the novel from there? (And even then, do we know that the people downloading it would otherwise have paid for it?)
Like, there is unquestionably potential for Ms Smith to be harmed in some way (relative to the not unproblematic IP status quo) but that is not the same as proving actual harm.
posted by Dysk at 7:21 AM on October 10 [4 favorites]
(It's also not clear to me why the same potential harms don't apply to Mr Smith - under existing IP law, there is no difference at all, is there?)
posted by Dysk at 7:24 AM on October 10 [3 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 7:24 AM on October 10 [3 favorites]
This is my last comment, as others here have different and deeper knowledge that would be helpful here, but --
A) I don't know about documented harms of lost sales. I don't know how anyone would prove this, short of people lining up to testify in court that they got free downloads from IA that they would otherwise have purchased, or otherwise documenting same on social media. I would assume, because these sorts of arguments are not uncommon in claims about copyright infringement, that the potential harm is a significant factor here. I am a writer and an academic librarian who occasionally works with patrons about author's rights, OA, copyright, etc., not a lawyer, so take that for what it's worth.
B) I chose the "Mr. Smith" example because the odds are decent that he was doing work for hire as a contractor (and thus had no rights to the work, said rights belonging to the publisher), or that he was on staff at the publication and was compensated via salary, benefits, etc., and did not retain rights to his work. This strikes me as the more straightforward (and Starlog may or may not be a good example here) case of a publisher/IP company holding the rights, which no longer benefit the creators who worked on the project.
This is the sort of thing for which there is still some interest among consumers, but which the publisher may not have made readily available for purchase, thereby opening a space for IA or others to post the content online. Some publishers have actually tried in these circumstances to make the content available online ("30 years of Dragon Magazine on CD-ROM!" or whatever), but the periodical market is huge. VAST. Thousands of trade and academic journals, annuals, magazines, etc. that come and go and most people never hear or care about. Consumer interest in the bulk of it is marginal, if consumers even know it exists. Thus the classic "I'm holding this IP and not making it available, freely or in other format" move that IA steps into the gap to answer.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:39 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
A) I don't know about documented harms of lost sales. I don't know how anyone would prove this, short of people lining up to testify in court that they got free downloads from IA that they would otherwise have purchased, or otherwise documenting same on social media. I would assume, because these sorts of arguments are not uncommon in claims about copyright infringement, that the potential harm is a significant factor here. I am a writer and an academic librarian who occasionally works with patrons about author's rights, OA, copyright, etc., not a lawyer, so take that for what it's worth.
B) I chose the "Mr. Smith" example because the odds are decent that he was doing work for hire as a contractor (and thus had no rights to the work, said rights belonging to the publisher), or that he was on staff at the publication and was compensated via salary, benefits, etc., and did not retain rights to his work. This strikes me as the more straightforward (and Starlog may or may not be a good example here) case of a publisher/IP company holding the rights, which no longer benefit the creators who worked on the project.
This is the sort of thing for which there is still some interest among consumers, but which the publisher may not have made readily available for purchase, thereby opening a space for IA or others to post the content online. Some publishers have actually tried in these circumstances to make the content available online ("30 years of Dragon Magazine on CD-ROM!" or whatever), but the periodical market is huge. VAST. Thousands of trade and academic journals, annuals, magazines, etc. that come and go and most people never hear or care about. Consumer interest in the bulk of it is marginal, if consumers even know it exists. Thus the classic "I'm holding this IP and not making it available, freely or in other format" move that IA steps into the gap to answer.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:39 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
A) I don't know about documented harms of lost sales. I don't know how anyone would prove this, short of people lining up to testify in court that they got free downloads from IA that they would otherwise have purchased, or otherwise documenting same on social media
A decent start would be just enumerating the downloads. It being available doesn't automatically mean anyone has actually availed themselves of it.
posted by Dysk at 7:42 AM on October 10 [3 favorites]
A decent start would be just enumerating the downloads. It being available doesn't automatically mean anyone has actually availed themselves of it.
posted by Dysk at 7:42 AM on October 10 [3 favorites]
That would be helpful, yes. I don't know if IA releases that data or not, whether voluntarily or when compelled to do so. A "classic" objection to download counts used in this fashion is that many people download endless amounts of content they would never buy or only get from a library. For libraries, that typically does involve money going to an author and/or a publisher at some point in the transaction chain, but it's not a $-to-the-author-or-publisher-per-checkout situation, as happens in Canada and elsewhere.
posted by cupcakeninja at 8:07 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 8:07 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
For libraries, that typically does involve money going to an author and/or a publisher at some point in the transaction chain, but it's not a $-to-the-author-or-publisher-per-checkout situation, as happens in Canada and elsewhere.
Yeah, in a lot of jurisdictions that just means buying regular old retail copies of the books (or whatever else). Publishers insisting on much more expensive licensing arrangements for anything digital is why something like the IA needs to exist. If we were to give libraries access to digital goods on the same terms as physical, there'd be a much stronger argument against the IA, in my opinion. Hence my belief that it is, as it stands, the cost of publisher greed in the digital domain.
posted by Dysk at 8:23 AM on October 10 [5 favorites]
Yeah, in a lot of jurisdictions that just means buying regular old retail copies of the books (or whatever else). Publishers insisting on much more expensive licensing arrangements for anything digital is why something like the IA needs to exist. If we were to give libraries access to digital goods on the same terms as physical, there'd be a much stronger argument against the IA, in my opinion. Hence my belief that it is, as it stands, the cost of publisher greed in the digital domain.
posted by Dysk at 8:23 AM on October 10 [5 favorites]
we really just cannot have nice things, can we?
posted by supermedusa at 9:00 AM on October 10 [7 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 9:00 AM on October 10 [7 favorites]
If we were to give libraries access to digital goods on the same terms as physical, there'd be a much stronger argument against the IA, in my opinion. Hence my belief that it is, as it stands, the cost of publisher greed in the digital domain.
The formats don't match, so neither do the terms. Physical books wear out and/or get deaccessioned. Or, sometimes, stay on the shelf for generations, even past copyright. Ebooks by their nature are going to be a tricker proposition. Prices are to my mind too high for libraries, but that's a matter for dickering.
The matter of what's a fair price for ebooks at a library is a separate matter from $-to-the-author-and/or-publisher-per-checkout, a practice I could wish to see followed in America. On the checkout slips at my local there comes printed the announcement that the borrower has saved x dollars by not having bought the book. A back handed way of encouraging support for the library. I see it as a slap in the face to the author.
(Full disclosure - I work at a library and I have books for sale. I encompass multitudes, if you insist.)
My favorite villain is hathitrust, which seems to hold copies of a lot of things that google copied back int he day, much of it out of copyright, but which they confine to academic libraries and those connected to same. IA does block some titles, not sure why, but has helped me out on innumerable occasions, far more than that hathis.
(Fun fact- Germany does not permit discounts on book sales. MSRP rules so independent book stores may thrive.
posted by BWA at 9:17 AM on October 10 [4 favorites]
The formats don't match, so neither do the terms. Physical books wear out and/or get deaccessioned. Or, sometimes, stay on the shelf for generations, even past copyright. Ebooks by their nature are going to be a tricker proposition. Prices are to my mind too high for libraries, but that's a matter for dickering.
The matter of what's a fair price for ebooks at a library is a separate matter from $-to-the-author-and/or-publisher-per-checkout, a practice I could wish to see followed in America. On the checkout slips at my local there comes printed the announcement that the borrower has saved x dollars by not having bought the book. A back handed way of encouraging support for the library. I see it as a slap in the face to the author.
(Full disclosure - I work at a library and I have books for sale. I encompass multitudes, if you insist.)
My favorite villain is hathitrust, which seems to hold copies of a lot of things that google copied back int he day, much of it out of copyright, but which they confine to academic libraries and those connected to same. IA does block some titles, not sure why, but has helped me out on innumerable occasions, far more than that hathis.
(Fun fact- Germany does not permit discounts on book sales. MSRP rules so independent book stores may thrive.
posted by BWA at 9:17 AM on October 10 [4 favorites]
$-to-the-author-and/or-publisher-per-checkout, a practice I could wish to see followed in America
[...]
A back handed way of encouraging support for the library. I see it as a slap in the face to the author.
I can see that there is no common ground for us to reach any agreement here.
posted by Dysk at 9:26 AM on October 10 [4 favorites]
[...]
A back handed way of encouraging support for the library. I see it as a slap in the face to the author.
I can see that there is no common ground for us to reach any agreement here.
posted by Dysk at 9:26 AM on October 10 [4 favorites]
This was really very stupid of the IA people. They could have checked with RIAA or whomever one checks these things with--which is apparently exactly what they have done with LP recordings--but didn't do with the 78s because “we asked around, we dealt with a lot of collectors, they just said it’s not a problem.” No one seems to care if they digitize an out of print recording from a 78 of Cedric P. Schmenglethorper and his Accordion Band playing "The Schenectady Shuffle" or whatever. People do care if you digitize a still-sold recording from a 78 of Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas." Collectors said it's not a problem? Really?! And you just went with that?
posted by slkinsey at 9:29 AM on October 10 [3 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 9:29 AM on October 10 [3 favorites]
Why is anybody entitled to royalties on a song recorded 82 years ago?
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:35 AM on October 10 [15 favorites]
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:35 AM on October 10 [15 favorites]
Librarian here and I have extremely mixed feelings about IA. First, the Wayback Machine and Archive.org are vital and amazing and really, really should have been their main or sole focus. The lending library and the ensuing lawsuit are both a level of hubris and techbro nonsense that frustrates me on a huge level.
One of the things that libraries have been able to and have been doing for decades is making "backup" copies of physical books. Back in the day, it was a xerox but in recent years it's been a digital copy. Due to interpretations of copyright laws and fair use, this was permitted as long as you didn't try to lend two copies. The idea was that you could preserve a damaged or hard to find book and lend out the copy. That way if the copy was damaged or lost, you retained the original. Lending the digital copy was largely seen as okay as long as the file "expired", was only available to one patron at a time, and the physical book was not able to be checked out. We even have software and programs to allow us to do this controlled digital lending and keep authors safe while letting folks use things.
I have been in multiple meetings with Brewster where we explained how this worked and why the limitations were there. However, he consistently seemed to think that these rules wouldn't apply to them. So they decided, against the advice of a number of external librarians, to make available copyrighted materials that IA didn't own or have a physical copy of and lend out MULTIPLE digital copies and also even used materials that they scanned for other institutions and allowed those to circulate.
Brewster has said on more than one occasion that he wants to "disrupt" the way books are shared and make information free, but he fails repeatedly to understand that libraries do this and have been doing this for centuries and have systems in place to protect authors while making information as available as possible.
This most attempt has made so many libraries actually pull back from controlled digital lending and it's making it harder to do the work we were doing with digital copies because of the perceived risk of lawsuit. If they had not tried to challenge the system, your local library might have been able to share digital copies of physical books they own more easily or they at least wouldn't be terrified to do so.
posted by teleri025 at 9:54 AM on October 10 [24 favorites]
One of the things that libraries have been able to and have been doing for decades is making "backup" copies of physical books. Back in the day, it was a xerox but in recent years it's been a digital copy. Due to interpretations of copyright laws and fair use, this was permitted as long as you didn't try to lend two copies. The idea was that you could preserve a damaged or hard to find book and lend out the copy. That way if the copy was damaged or lost, you retained the original. Lending the digital copy was largely seen as okay as long as the file "expired", was only available to one patron at a time, and the physical book was not able to be checked out. We even have software and programs to allow us to do this controlled digital lending and keep authors safe while letting folks use things.
I have been in multiple meetings with Brewster where we explained how this worked and why the limitations were there. However, he consistently seemed to think that these rules wouldn't apply to them. So they decided, against the advice of a number of external librarians, to make available copyrighted materials that IA didn't own or have a physical copy of and lend out MULTIPLE digital copies and also even used materials that they scanned for other institutions and allowed those to circulate.
Brewster has said on more than one occasion that he wants to "disrupt" the way books are shared and make information free, but he fails repeatedly to understand that libraries do this and have been doing this for centuries and have systems in place to protect authors while making information as available as possible.
This most attempt has made so many libraries actually pull back from controlled digital lending and it's making it harder to do the work we were doing with digital copies because of the perceived risk of lawsuit. If they had not tried to challenge the system, your local library might have been able to share digital copies of physical books they own more easily or they at least wouldn't be terrified to do so.
posted by teleri025 at 9:54 AM on October 10 [24 favorites]
The article does throw out some numbers. For example, Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" has about 0.01% the number of plays on IA as the Spotify version. No one's taking 78 RPM food out of anyone's mouths that the label's contracts with artists didn't already remove.
My work relies on research that is only available on Wayback Machine or software or out-of-print publications on IA. Some of it absolutely does not exist anywhere else.
posted by credulous at 9:55 AM on October 10 [8 favorites]
My work relies on research that is only available on Wayback Machine or software or out-of-print publications on IA. Some of it absolutely does not exist anywhere else.
posted by credulous at 9:55 AM on October 10 [8 favorites]
Why is anybody entitled to royalties on a song recorded 82 years ago?
Why is anybody entitled to anything somebody else made for free?
posted by sinfony at 9:56 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
Why is anybody entitled to anything somebody else made for free?
posted by sinfony at 9:56 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
Why is anybody entitled to royalties on a song recorded 82 years ago?
One could make the argument that whatever amount they paid Bing or whomever back then was predicated on the expectation of recouping that expense and making a profit over the course of an extended period of time due to their ownership of whichever of his recordings turned out to be popular.
posted by slkinsey at 9:58 AM on October 10 [1 favorite]
One could make the argument that whatever amount they paid Bing or whomever back then was predicated on the expectation of recouping that expense and making a profit over the course of an extended period of time due to their ownership of whichever of his recordings turned out to be popular.
posted by slkinsey at 9:58 AM on October 10 [1 favorite]
IP licensing is so fucked up.
My friend and I traveled from the US to Canada for a weekend trip. He subscribes to a streaming channel that lets him watch a particular Canadian television show in the US.
We get to Canada and CBC Gem can't be run on devices in Canada, if they have some US-specific identifier. Changing that identifier will wipe out subscriptions, like those above, so we can't run the CBC app.
So he loads up the streaming channel, which fails due to the networking placing him in Canada, where the streamer doesn't have rights? He then fires up a VPN connection to put his device back in the US, but the streaming channel doesn't like VPNs, so that fails.
I get that actors, crew, etc all need to get paid. I do get that. But this is just punitive, to the point that even if you pay into this licensing system, you don't get what you pay for. Piracy seems to be kind of a necessity at this point, just to make things work.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:00 AM on October 10 [12 favorites]
My friend and I traveled from the US to Canada for a weekend trip. He subscribes to a streaming channel that lets him watch a particular Canadian television show in the US.
We get to Canada and CBC Gem can't be run on devices in Canada, if they have some US-specific identifier. Changing that identifier will wipe out subscriptions, like those above, so we can't run the CBC app.
So he loads up the streaming channel, which fails due to the networking placing him in Canada, where the streamer doesn't have rights? He then fires up a VPN connection to put his device back in the US, but the streaming channel doesn't like VPNs, so that fails.
I get that actors, crew, etc all need to get paid. I do get that. But this is just punitive, to the point that even if you pay into this licensing system, you don't get what you pay for. Piracy seems to be kind of a necessity at this point, just to make things work.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:00 AM on October 10 [12 favorites]
For example, Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" has about 0.01% the number of plays on IA as the Spotify version. No one's taking 78 RPM food out of anyone's mouths that the label's contracts with artists didn't already remove.
One could say the same thing about, say, an image where 99.09% of the views are on the photographer's monetized website and 0.01% of the views are on the blog of some dude who copied the image without permission. Almost every time that blogger is gonna get a takedown notice if the photographer finds out about it. The issue is that you have to act to protect your copyright if you want to continue owning it and exercising those rights. That doesn't mean that this lawsuit isn't a dick move. It is. They certainly could have done a kind of takedown notice by saying some version of, "We have identified the below list of audio recordings for which we own the copyright. Please take them down by [date] or we will sue you for $$$$$."
posted by slkinsey at 10:08 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
One could say the same thing about, say, an image where 99.09% of the views are on the photographer's monetized website and 0.01% of the views are on the blog of some dude who copied the image without permission. Almost every time that blogger is gonna get a takedown notice if the photographer finds out about it. The issue is that you have to act to protect your copyright if you want to continue owning it and exercising those rights. That doesn't mean that this lawsuit isn't a dick move. It is. They certainly could have done a kind of takedown notice by saying some version of, "We have identified the below list of audio recordings for which we own the copyright. Please take them down by [date] or we will sue you for $$$$$."
posted by slkinsey at 10:08 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
"One could make the argument that whatever amount they paid Bing or whomever back then was predicated on the expectation of recouping that expense and making a profit over the course of an extended period of time due to their ownership of whichever of his recordings turned out to be popular."
Right, except that copyright has been extended a number of times since then in different contexts. (Even though Ive been heavily copyright-law-adjacent, I'm not going to research exactly what the deal was with US recordings, except to note that there was an extended battle in the EU when the copyright in rock-and-roll era music was about to expire, which led to it being extended for another 20 years).
posted by ntk at 10:12 AM on October 10 [6 favorites]
Right, except that copyright has been extended a number of times since then in different contexts. (Even though Ive been heavily copyright-law-adjacent, I'm not going to research exactly what the deal was with US recordings, except to note that there was an extended battle in the EU when the copyright in rock-and-roll era music was about to expire, which led to it being extended for another 20 years).
posted by ntk at 10:12 AM on October 10 [6 favorites]
I guarantee you that no one involved in "White Christmas" was motivated by the idea that their heirs might still be receiving royalties 82 years later, especially since copyright terms didn't last that long in 1942.
It's telling that the interviews in the latter half of the Rolling Stone article are with heirs and estates, not artists. People here on Metafilter are talking about creators' rights, but the Great 78 Project lawsuit is not about defending artists, it is about defending inherited wealth and rentier profits. It's an honorable thing for a Mills Brothers heir to take care of his father's legacy, but he was not involved in creating the music that's in the Internet Archive, and his father had no reason to think his son would still be earning money from his labor in 2024. There would be no issue at all with the Great 78 Project if we had reasonable copyright terms.
Why is anybody entitled to anything somebody else made for free?
The public benefit of having access to culture outweighs the public benefit of letting rentiers lock up culture behind a paywall long after the artists themselves are dead.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 10:21 AM on October 10 [23 favorites]
It's telling that the interviews in the latter half of the Rolling Stone article are with heirs and estates, not artists. People here on Metafilter are talking about creators' rights, but the Great 78 Project lawsuit is not about defending artists, it is about defending inherited wealth and rentier profits. It's an honorable thing for a Mills Brothers heir to take care of his father's legacy, but he was not involved in creating the music that's in the Internet Archive, and his father had no reason to think his son would still be earning money from his labor in 2024. There would be no issue at all with the Great 78 Project if we had reasonable copyright terms.
Why is anybody entitled to anything somebody else made for free?
The public benefit of having access to culture outweighs the public benefit of letting rentiers lock up culture behind a paywall long after the artists themselves are dead.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 10:21 AM on October 10 [23 favorites]
From the Library of Congress:
For recordings first published before 1923, the copyright term ends on December 31, 2021.posted by slkinsey at 10:23 AM on October 10 [3 favorites]
Recordings first published between 1923-1946 are protected for 100 years.
Recordings first published between 1947-1956 are protected for 110 years.
For all remaining recordings first made prior to February 15, 1972, protection shall end on February 15, 2067.
Recorded after February 15, 1972, 95 years from publication or 120 years from recording date, whichever is shorter.
I guarantee you that no one involved in "White Christmas" was motivated by the idea that their heirs might still be receiving royalties 82 years later, especially since copyright terms didn't last that long in 1942.
It seems highly unlikely that any individual ever owned the master for "White Christmas." Given the difficulties in copying and reproducing an audio recording back then, I imagine the recording company thought they could continue making money on it for as long as they continued pressing it.
posted by slkinsey at 10:25 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
It seems highly unlikely that any individual ever owned the master for "White Christmas." Given the difficulties in copying and reproducing an audio recording back then, I imagine the recording company thought they could continue making money on it for as long as they continued pressing it.
posted by slkinsey at 10:25 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
slkinsey, you're behaving as if copyright terms were set by god or something, not subject to a ton of corporate fuckery to get where they are today.
posted by sagc at 10:43 AM on October 10 [12 favorites]
posted by sagc at 10:43 AM on October 10 [12 favorites]
20 years of having to say Fuck the RIAA. Ownership of ideas and art is disgusting. It's so inhumane, so inhuman, so uncivil. A barbarous ethos for corporate savages.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:48 AM on October 10 [4 favorites]
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:48 AM on October 10 [4 favorites]
sagc, I’m not arguing for or against. And I fully acknowledge that the lengths are both ridiculously long and have been manipulated to be that way by corporations. We’ve been around this tree a thousand times on MeFi. I’m more just saying that this is the way it is. I think drug laws are stupid but I also think my friend was stupid to get busted sparking one up on a sidewalk in the Village back in the aughts. IA was stupid to do this, especially when there are tons of other 78 recordings waiting to be digitized.
As someone who creates and earns some income from IP, I am generally in favor of IP protections—but for some reasonably long/reasonably short period of time like, say, 50 years.
posted by slkinsey at 11:04 AM on October 10 [3 favorites]
As someone who creates and earns some income from IP, I am generally in favor of IP protections—but for some reasonably long/reasonably short period of time like, say, 50 years.
posted by slkinsey at 11:04 AM on October 10 [3 favorites]
The issue is that you have to act to protect your copyright if you want to continue owning it and exercising those rights.
Your thinking about trademarks. Copyright doesn't work that way. You don't have to do anything to maintain it and you can go after infringers at any time even if you have been turning a blind eye to the infringement previously.
posted by Mitheral at 11:08 AM on October 10 [13 favorites]
Your thinking about trademarks. Copyright doesn't work that way. You don't have to do anything to maintain it and you can go after infringers at any time even if you have been turning a blind eye to the infringement previously.
posted by Mitheral at 11:08 AM on October 10 [13 favorites]
I was about to say something about the term of ℗ (sound recording copyright) being 50 years, then I read the tiniest bit about it and I realize I was so wrong about it I was well even into "not even wrong" territory. I'm not even sure where I could have got such an idea.
There's something wrong about the RIAA suing for millions, while the RIAA is itself being sued for millions of royalties it collected on behalf of artists but didn't pay out.
posted by scruss at 11:12 AM on October 10 [7 favorites]
There's something wrong about the RIAA suing for millions, while the RIAA is itself being sued for millions of royalties it collected on behalf of artists but didn't pay out.
posted by scruss at 11:12 AM on October 10 [7 favorites]
Mitheral, of course you’re right! Brain cross-wired there a bit.
scruss: Hard agree on the RIAA hypocrisy.
posted by slkinsey at 11:33 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
scruss: Hard agree on the RIAA hypocrisy.
posted by slkinsey at 11:33 AM on October 10 [2 favorites]
slkinsey, Trademark requires regular defence, copyright does not.
slkinsey, the length of copyright has been *retroactively* lengthened many times. The current length of copyright for a work done in the past is not the length it had when it was made. For a period of about ... 60? ... years it was retroactively lengthened by 20 years every 20 years (I have called it the "mickey mouse" extensions, as it kept steamboat willy under copyright).
Even if you assume rights holders assume an infinite length of ownership ("we can just buy politicians and make it last longer!"), current value economics puts revenue 80 years away as a very, very tiny contribution to present value. At a mere 5% discount factor that 1$ in 80 years with 100% certainty is "worth" under 2 cents.
If you have a (totally reliable) 1$ income stream per year, the full income stream is worth 20$ in present value. Of this, the first 80 years is worth 0.95^0+.95^1+.95^2+...+0.95^79 = 19.67$, leaving 0.33$ of value in the income stream for the rest of eternity.
In short, next to nobody is making significant financial decisions based on the value of IP today based on selling it in 80 years, and nobody did it 80 years ago.
posted by NotAYakk at 1:42 PM on October 10 [3 favorites]
slkinsey, the length of copyright has been *retroactively* lengthened many times. The current length of copyright for a work done in the past is not the length it had when it was made. For a period of about ... 60? ... years it was retroactively lengthened by 20 years every 20 years (I have called it the "mickey mouse" extensions, as it kept steamboat willy under copyright).
Even if you assume rights holders assume an infinite length of ownership ("we can just buy politicians and make it last longer!"), current value economics puts revenue 80 years away as a very, very tiny contribution to present value. At a mere 5% discount factor that 1$ in 80 years with 100% certainty is "worth" under 2 cents.
If you have a (totally reliable) 1$ income stream per year, the full income stream is worth 20$ in present value. Of this, the first 80 years is worth 0.95^0+.95^1+.95^2+...+0.95^79 = 19.67$, leaving 0.33$ of value in the income stream for the rest of eternity.
In short, next to nobody is making significant financial decisions based on the value of IP today based on selling it in 80 years, and nobody did it 80 years ago.
posted by NotAYakk at 1:42 PM on October 10 [3 favorites]
At this moment, the Internet Archive has been taken offline due to DDOS attacks.
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:19 PM on October 10 [1 favorite]
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:19 PM on October 10 [1 favorite]
I know this thread is mostly talking about music, but for me it's the books. There are THOUSANDS of titles I have used on Internet Archive that are unavailable to me in any other way, unless I bought them at an estimated cost of more than $250K, which is beyond my means. Not available even in interlibrary loan, as far as I can tell — an even if they were, having them in a digital, searchable form is really the only way my work happens. (I have a few times bought books, cut the pages, and then digitized them for my own use because doing complex "X near Y" searches cannot be done with certainty on paper.) It happens to also be true for the public domain and out-of-copyright stuff: IA is the only place that has it without me having to buy it for large sums, and even when Google or Hathi Trust also have it, IA's scans are often better, which means the OCR has the potential to be better. (I do my own OCR on thousands of pages a month.)
I have had my own copyrighted book posted on IA and told someone who I knew who worked at IA about it and they took it down. But that in no way caused me bitter feelings, as my books are still to be found on all *actual* pirate sites, and one of them was even released in an unauthorized Russian translation.
Here's an offer I made to the universe about 20 years ago: I will GLADLY pay a monthly flat fee for unlimited access to anyone who wants to make a huge library of digitized books available for full-text searching. I pay for three digitized newspaper databases (and of course access the large number of free ones) and I contribute to IA already as a thanks for its services. If the publishers could just do what IA is trying to do with books but make it useful for research, then it wouldn't be so bad. But they try to kill a thing and then don't replace it.
posted by Mo Nickels at 2:35 PM on October 10 [8 favorites]
I have had my own copyrighted book posted on IA and told someone who I knew who worked at IA about it and they took it down. But that in no way caused me bitter feelings, as my books are still to be found on all *actual* pirate sites, and one of them was even released in an unauthorized Russian translation.
Here's an offer I made to the universe about 20 years ago: I will GLADLY pay a monthly flat fee for unlimited access to anyone who wants to make a huge library of digitized books available for full-text searching. I pay for three digitized newspaper databases (and of course access the large number of free ones) and I contribute to IA already as a thanks for its services. If the publishers could just do what IA is trying to do with books but make it useful for research, then it wouldn't be so bad. But they try to kill a thing and then don't replace it.
posted by Mo Nickels at 2:35 PM on October 10 [8 favorites]
I know this thread is mostly talking about music, but for me it's the books. There are THOUSANDS of titles I have used on Internet Archive that are unavailable to me in any other way, unless I bought them at an estimated cost of more than $250K, which is beyond my means.
Seconding this. A personal example: I've been doing a personal project recently that has involved hunting up specific editions of some out-of-print books, almost all of which were only published in paperback, and all of which were printed at least 30 years ago. These books are not available elsewhere. One of them (which the IA didn't have, actually) i was able to find a single under-$40 used copy of—in Australia, so shipping would've at least doubled the cost. (I ended up having a friend in Australia buy it and scan the part i needed.) The authors of these books are uniformly dead. Newer editions of the books do exist (and even in-print ebooks!), but without the additional material i'm actually hunting for, which has never been reprinted. And yet, all of this stuff is still under copyright, so it's technically illegal for the IA to make it available.
I'm not as anti-copyright as many leftists, at least not under current societal conditions (although i yearn for a world where we don't need it because artists can live safely and comfortably without it), but imo under our current copyright regime, if a work has been made completely unavailable for purchase/use by the people who "own" the "rights", it's flat-out fair game and i give zero shits about what's "legal".
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:52 PM on October 10 [7 favorites]
Seconding this. A personal example: I've been doing a personal project recently that has involved hunting up specific editions of some out-of-print books, almost all of which were only published in paperback, and all of which were printed at least 30 years ago. These books are not available elsewhere. One of them (which the IA didn't have, actually) i was able to find a single under-$40 used copy of—in Australia, so shipping would've at least doubled the cost. (I ended up having a friend in Australia buy it and scan the part i needed.) The authors of these books are uniformly dead. Newer editions of the books do exist (and even in-print ebooks!), but without the additional material i'm actually hunting for, which has never been reprinted. And yet, all of this stuff is still under copyright, so it's technically illegal for the IA to make it available.
I'm not as anti-copyright as many leftists, at least not under current societal conditions (although i yearn for a world where we don't need it because artists can live safely and comfortably without it), but imo under our current copyright regime, if a work has been made completely unavailable for purchase/use by the people who "own" the "rights", it's flat-out fair game and i give zero shits about what's "legal".
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:52 PM on October 10 [7 favorites]
NB: since these works were only published in paperback, decades ago, there are also zero extant library copies, at least not in Worldcat. Paperbacks wear out really quickly under library conditions!
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:54 PM on October 10 [3 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:54 PM on October 10 [3 favorites]
Why is anybody entitled to anything somebody else made for free?
why should only rich people get ready access to whatever they want?
posted by philip-random at 3:33 PM on October 10 [6 favorites]
why should only rich people get ready access to whatever they want?
posted by philip-random at 3:33 PM on October 10 [6 favorites]
slkinsey, the length of copyright has been *retroactively* lengthened many times. The current length of copyright for a work done in the past is not the length it had when it was made. For a period of about ... 60? ... years it was retroactively lengthened by 20 years every 20 years (I have called it the "mickey mouse" extensions, as it kept steamboat willy under copyright).
The length of copyright was changed from a fixed term of 28 years (with optional renewal for a second 28-year term) to life of the author plus 50 years in the Copyright Act of 1976. That term was extended once, in 1998, for an additional 20 years. IIRC the duration of copyright in America has been extended four times since the first US copyright statute, enacted in 1790.
posted by sinfony at 4:17 PM on October 10 [2 favorites]
The length of copyright was changed from a fixed term of 28 years (with optional renewal for a second 28-year term) to life of the author plus 50 years in the Copyright Act of 1976. That term was extended once, in 1998, for an additional 20 years. IIRC the duration of copyright in America has been extended four times since the first US copyright statute, enacted in 1790.
posted by sinfony at 4:17 PM on October 10 [2 favorites]
All I know is that find the web archiving functions to be invaluable and they've allowed me to look back and repeatedly recover data that would otherwise have been lost.
posted by drewbage1847 at 4:19 PM on October 10 [5 favorites]
posted by drewbage1847 at 4:19 PM on October 10 [5 favorites]
Why is anybody entitled to anything somebody else made for free?
Why should anyone be permitted to decide what media someone else can look at?
posted by pattern juggler at 4:58 PM on October 10 [3 favorites]
Why should anyone be permitted to decide what media someone else can look at?
posted by pattern juggler at 4:58 PM on October 10 [3 favorites]
Why is anybody entitled to anything somebody else made for free?
Why do you presume you're entitled to an answer to this question? It's a loaded question that makes a lot of assumptions; a person could waste a lot of time unpacking what you could even mean by it. I have no interest in that whatsoever.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:23 PM on October 10 [6 favorites]
Why do you presume you're entitled to an answer to this question? It's a loaded question that makes a lot of assumptions; a person could waste a lot of time unpacking what you could even mean by it. I have no interest in that whatsoever.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:23 PM on October 10 [6 favorites]
You’ll be relieved to find I wasn’t asking you.
posted by sinfony at 8:38 PM on October 10 [2 favorites]
posted by sinfony at 8:38 PM on October 10 [2 favorites]
Ownership of ideas and art is disgusting. It's so inhumane, so inhuman, so uncivil. A barbarous ethos for corporate savages.
Artists don't deserve to be called such nasty names.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:54 PM on October 10 [4 favorites]
Artists don't deserve to be called such nasty names.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:54 PM on October 10 [4 favorites]
Not all artists actually endorse the current system of intellectual property ownership, and far from everyone who endorses the system is an artist. False equivalence.
posted by Dysk at 9:36 PM on October 10 [7 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 9:36 PM on October 10 [7 favorites]
Artists don't deserve to be called such nasty names.
Good thing no one said anything about artists.
posted by pattern juggler at 3:28 AM on October 11 [2 favorites]
Good thing no one said anything about artists.
posted by pattern juggler at 3:28 AM on October 11 [2 favorites]
You’ll be relieved to find I wasn’t asking you.
A big seal clap for you, I guess, but I hope no one else takes this bait; the rhetoric you introduced forces the unlucky soul who engages with it first to try and divine what exactly you mean, and then to tilt at that windmill. After they've expended a lot of energy, you get to stroll up and be, "Nuh uh! I didn't mean that. I meant [another pithy-sounding, substance-free one-liner for the interlocutor to flesh out for you]." It's tempting bait, but I hope everyone stops engaging with it, as it's a distracting waste of time.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:36 AM on October 11 [9 favorites]
A big seal clap for you, I guess, but I hope no one else takes this bait; the rhetoric you introduced forces the unlucky soul who engages with it first to try and divine what exactly you mean, and then to tilt at that windmill. After they've expended a lot of energy, you get to stroll up and be, "Nuh uh! I didn't mean that. I meant [another pithy-sounding, substance-free one-liner for the interlocutor to flesh out for you]." It's tempting bait, but I hope everyone stops engaging with it, as it's a distracting waste of time.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:36 AM on October 11 [9 favorites]
Why is anybody entitled to anything somebody else made for free?
I too am a writer, and if my work went out of print I'd be singing the praises of IA for giving readers access to it. Fuck, I'd be delighted if my paywalled stuff was considered important enough to get on there. I know people don't go to IA as their key source of ebooks - it's Amazon and Kindle Store and whatever. IA is an archive. It preserves works, especially when you start talking about out of print and otherwise inaccessible works. And cutting off the audience from the work is a sin, as far as I am concerned.
I don't create things because I want a paycheck. I mean I have done that, and I will probably continue to do so in the future. I write because I want to tell stories that readers enjoy, and I can't do that if my work goes bye-bye behind a publisher's paywall or they stop printing my work, or only print it locally or whatever.
A massive quantity of creatives only want to get paid so they can make more art! I'd take a UBI check and then live my best life doing art that people could have for free! Every day of my life till I die! You're entitled to it because I can't be a writer without readers; I can't be an artist without people out there engaging with my work. It's not even an entitlement - its a recognition of a mutually beneficial relationship that is literally one of the things that make life worth living - engaging with the creativity, either by making it or engaging with it, one of humanities greatest activities.
And so much of copyright law is about stopping that. It's not even about making sure people get paid for their work anymore. Who in the fuck from 1935 is even alive to need those extended century long terms? Is it helping them make more art? It's almost always companies who bought the rights to the work back when the legal framework was totally different. Shedloads of copyright locked work was made on contract, so the artists got paid fuckall for their work and are long dead in addition.
Right now there's a lot of capitalism in the way. I need to get paid to live, and I need to create to find that life worth living. But so much of copyright law is not about making sure I get paid and is about rent seeking and gatekeeping, and I can only be thankful for the work of those who challenge it.
posted by Jilder at 9:51 PM on October 11 [7 favorites]
I too am a writer, and if my work went out of print I'd be singing the praises of IA for giving readers access to it. Fuck, I'd be delighted if my paywalled stuff was considered important enough to get on there. I know people don't go to IA as their key source of ebooks - it's Amazon and Kindle Store and whatever. IA is an archive. It preserves works, especially when you start talking about out of print and otherwise inaccessible works. And cutting off the audience from the work is a sin, as far as I am concerned.
I don't create things because I want a paycheck. I mean I have done that, and I will probably continue to do so in the future. I write because I want to tell stories that readers enjoy, and I can't do that if my work goes bye-bye behind a publisher's paywall or they stop printing my work, or only print it locally or whatever.
A massive quantity of creatives only want to get paid so they can make more art! I'd take a UBI check and then live my best life doing art that people could have for free! Every day of my life till I die! You're entitled to it because I can't be a writer without readers; I can't be an artist without people out there engaging with my work. It's not even an entitlement - its a recognition of a mutually beneficial relationship that is literally one of the things that make life worth living - engaging with the creativity, either by making it or engaging with it, one of humanities greatest activities.
And so much of copyright law is about stopping that. It's not even about making sure people get paid for their work anymore. Who in the fuck from 1935 is even alive to need those extended century long terms? Is it helping them make more art? It's almost always companies who bought the rights to the work back when the legal framework was totally different. Shedloads of copyright locked work was made on contract, so the artists got paid fuckall for their work and are long dead in addition.
Right now there's a lot of capitalism in the way. I need to get paid to live, and I need to create to find that life worth living. But so much of copyright law is not about making sure I get paid and is about rent seeking and gatekeeping, and I can only be thankful for the work of those who challenge it.
posted by Jilder at 9:51 PM on October 11 [7 favorites]
Also absence-of-money where my mouth is: if anyone wants free copies of my work, I have a couple of zines and a short story at the itch.io link in my bio.
posted by Jilder at 9:59 PM on October 11 [4 favorites]
posted by Jilder at 9:59 PM on October 11 [4 favorites]
These are all fine and generous sentiments about your desire for other people to have access to your work. Whether any given author/artist/musician/etc. wishes to be so free with their work should, in my view, be up to them. Copyright is the only available means by which they can exercise any such control.
Copyright is, like everything else, subject to rampant capitalist fuckery. Nobody but Disney execs and Bob Dylan thinks the term should be as long as it is (although I'll note here that the term went to life+50 and then life+70 in Europe before it did so in the US). IMO 28+28 is more than long enough for copyright protection, but that has never been the term of copyright in my lifetime and it's clearly never going to get shorter.
In general I agree with many of the anti-copyright sentiments expressed in this thread. It's obviously too long. Most of the money doesn't go to creators and that's bullshit. Alternative methods of access to out of print/locked away works should be available. That's all great. Where I diverge is that I don't think any of that even begins to justify the view that everybody is therefore entitled to any work they want. To my everlasting frustration, one of the few things that has never changed in my decades on the internet is that every discussion of copyright is replete with grandstanding about how information should be free or whatever, usually accompanied by complete misapprehension of what copyright law even does. e.g. "Ownership of ideas" is "disgusting", proclaims somebody plainly unaware of the fundamental tenet of copyright law that copyright law provides no protection for ideas.
"Who in the fuck from 1935 is even alive to need those extended century long terms?" I don't know, and neither do you. Most of those artists are probably dead, sure. Perhaps corporations own all their works, but perhaps their heirs do. Before 1976, if an author died before they renewed their copyright, the right to renew it vested in their heirs even if the author had previously contracted with somebody else to assign them the renewal right. Post-1976 the author or their heirs can terminate a transfer of rights after 35 years. Do companies who bought those rights try to fuck over the author and their heirs when they try to exercise the termination right? Of course they do! Capitalism reigns! But they don't always prevail, and in any event how on earth does that suggest that I should therefore get everything I want for free?
tl;dr it's great when people want to share their art freely. I happen to think that if they don't want to do so I don't get to rant and rave about capitalism to justify just fucking stealing it.
posted by sinfony at 2:02 PM on October 12
Copyright is, like everything else, subject to rampant capitalist fuckery. Nobody but Disney execs and Bob Dylan thinks the term should be as long as it is (although I'll note here that the term went to life+50 and then life+70 in Europe before it did so in the US). IMO 28+28 is more than long enough for copyright protection, but that has never been the term of copyright in my lifetime and it's clearly never going to get shorter.
In general I agree with many of the anti-copyright sentiments expressed in this thread. It's obviously too long. Most of the money doesn't go to creators and that's bullshit. Alternative methods of access to out of print/locked away works should be available. That's all great. Where I diverge is that I don't think any of that even begins to justify the view that everybody is therefore entitled to any work they want. To my everlasting frustration, one of the few things that has never changed in my decades on the internet is that every discussion of copyright is replete with grandstanding about how information should be free or whatever, usually accompanied by complete misapprehension of what copyright law even does. e.g. "Ownership of ideas" is "disgusting", proclaims somebody plainly unaware of the fundamental tenet of copyright law that copyright law provides no protection for ideas.
"Who in the fuck from 1935 is even alive to need those extended century long terms?" I don't know, and neither do you. Most of those artists are probably dead, sure. Perhaps corporations own all their works, but perhaps their heirs do. Before 1976, if an author died before they renewed their copyright, the right to renew it vested in their heirs even if the author had previously contracted with somebody else to assign them the renewal right. Post-1976 the author or their heirs can terminate a transfer of rights after 35 years. Do companies who bought those rights try to fuck over the author and their heirs when they try to exercise the termination right? Of course they do! Capitalism reigns! But they don't always prevail, and in any event how on earth does that suggest that I should therefore get everything I want for free?
tl;dr it's great when people want to share their art freely. I happen to think that if they don't want to do so I don't get to rant and rave about capitalism to justify just fucking stealing it.
posted by sinfony at 2:02 PM on October 12
These are all fine and generous sentiments about your desire for other people to have access to your work. Whether any given author/artist/musician/etc. wishes to be so free with their work should, in my view, be up to them.
I disagree, and such a conception of the relationship between artists, audiences, and their art is extremely aberrant across the history of humanity. Just because I think something up gives me no right to determine how other people use that idea. The very nature of ideas is that once they are shared they no longer belong solely to the person who originated them.
Copyright isn't about some moral right to artistic integrity. It is about allowing publishers to make money by licensing the rights to distribute creative works. Without that financial motive, copyright is complete pointless. If someone believes that financial consideration has no moral weight, there is no reason for them to care about copyright.
Where I diverge is that I don't think any of that even begins to justify the view that everybody is therefore entitled to any work they want.
It isn't about entitlement. I am not entitled to enjoy the smell of a bakery making cookies. That doesn't mean someone has the right to try to prevent that from occurring, or that I am committing some sin by doing so anyway. No one is obligated to give me a digital copy of a book or piece of music I want, but if I can acquire it there is nothing wrong with my doing so. Or at least if there is, it needs to hang on something more substantial than "you aren't entitled to it."
posted by pattern juggler at 2:53 PM on October 12 [1 favorite]
I disagree, and such a conception of the relationship between artists, audiences, and their art is extremely aberrant across the history of humanity. Just because I think something up gives me no right to determine how other people use that idea. The very nature of ideas is that once they are shared they no longer belong solely to the person who originated them.
Copyright isn't about some moral right to artistic integrity. It is about allowing publishers to make money by licensing the rights to distribute creative works. Without that financial motive, copyright is complete pointless. If someone believes that financial consideration has no moral weight, there is no reason for them to care about copyright.
Where I diverge is that I don't think any of that even begins to justify the view that everybody is therefore entitled to any work they want.
It isn't about entitlement. I am not entitled to enjoy the smell of a bakery making cookies. That doesn't mean someone has the right to try to prevent that from occurring, or that I am committing some sin by doing so anyway. No one is obligated to give me a digital copy of a book or piece of music I want, but if I can acquire it there is nothing wrong with my doing so. Or at least if there is, it needs to hang on something more substantial than "you aren't entitled to it."
posted by pattern juggler at 2:53 PM on October 12 [1 favorite]
Copyright isn't about some moral right to artistic integrity.
Outside of the US it is very much about that. To a very limited extent it is also about that in the US, see the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990. IMO moral rights are a much more compelling justification for copyright protection than economic incentives, especially in an era of extremely low production costs, but that's an uphill battle against more than 200 years of precedent.
No one is obligated to give me a digital copy of a book or piece of music I want, but if I can acquire it there is nothing wrong with my doing so.
"Stealing is okay because I want it".
Just because I think something up gives me no right to determine how other people use that idea. The very nature of ideas is that once they are shared they no longer belong solely to the person who originated them.
I don't know why I even bother.
posted by sinfony at 3:50 PM on October 12
Outside of the US it is very much about that. To a very limited extent it is also about that in the US, see the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990. IMO moral rights are a much more compelling justification for copyright protection than economic incentives, especially in an era of extremely low production costs, but that's an uphill battle against more than 200 years of precedent.
No one is obligated to give me a digital copy of a book or piece of music I want, but if I can acquire it there is nothing wrong with my doing so.
"Stealing is okay because I want it".
Just because I think something up gives me no right to determine how other people use that idea. The very nature of ideas is that once they are shared they no longer belong solely to the person who originated them.
I don't know why I even bother.
posted by sinfony at 3:50 PM on October 12
If we're talking copyright violation, we're talking copyright violation, not theft. Theft is deprivation of property. Making unauthorised copies is not that.
posted by Dysk at 4:17 PM on October 12 [2 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 4:17 PM on October 12 [2 favorites]
IMO moral rights are a much more compelling justification for copyright protection than economic incentives, especially in an era of extremely low production costs, but that's an uphill battle against more than 200 years of precedent.
This is, again, an extremely atypical conception of art throughout history. I see no reason to care about the "moral rights" of an artist.
"Stealing is okay because I want it".
Pretty much, yes. Of course calling it "stealing" is ridiculous, but taking a copy of something that is available to me because I want it and it is available is entirely okay. Artists do not have any natural right to be paid by everyone who sees a copy of their work. If I download a book and read, or download it and never read, buy a copy from a used bookstore or borrow it from a friend, or never get a copy of a book at all, my influence on the author is identical. There is no harm done, only violation of an imaginary "right" to profit.
I don't know why I even bother.
Apparently you don't.
posted by pattern juggler at 5:08 PM on October 12 [1 favorite]
This is, again, an extremely atypical conception of art throughout history. I see no reason to care about the "moral rights" of an artist.
"Stealing is okay because I want it".
Pretty much, yes. Of course calling it "stealing" is ridiculous, but taking a copy of something that is available to me because I want it and it is available is entirely okay. Artists do not have any natural right to be paid by everyone who sees a copy of their work. If I download a book and read, or download it and never read, buy a copy from a used bookstore or borrow it from a friend, or never get a copy of a book at all, my influence on the author is identical. There is no harm done, only violation of an imaginary "right" to profit.
I don't know why I even bother.
Apparently you don't.
posted by pattern juggler at 5:08 PM on October 12 [1 favorite]
Why is anybody entitled to anything somebody else made for free?
weren't we talking about white christmas?
why it's right here - i don't know if you're entitled to it or not, i just linked to it
posted by pyramid termite at 6:10 PM on October 12 [1 favorite]
weren't we talking about white christmas?
why it's right here - i don't know if you're entitled to it or not, i just linked to it
posted by pyramid termite at 6:10 PM on October 12 [1 favorite]
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posted by Dysk at 2:28 AM on October 10 [36 favorites]